Woman facing 5 years in jail for...

Getting drunk and driving a turtle.



Actually she's charged with animal cruelty, but it's a turtle! They have shells so they don't get squashed. It's not like she sat on a baby fox or something. And there was very little danger of her driving the turtle over a pedestrian or crashing into a car full of kids.

So next time you're blind drunk and need to get home, drive your car, not a turtle, or you could go to prison for five years.

You mess with protected species then they will throw the book at you and rightly so. Around here they were looking for two drunk college aged girls who were caught on the La Jolla Seal Cam harassing the pregnant seals. One of them even sat on a pregnant seal like she was riding a horse while the other took a picture. The pregnant seal was so distressed it had a miscarriage.

It is a violation of both state and federal law to harass marine mammals so if caught they could spend years in prison. Moral of the story is don't be a dumb ass.

The turtles came up on the beach to spawn and the friggin' tourists got them so agitated they retreated without laying their eggs. There's a very narrow timeframe in which they can do so or they'll die out.

The only thing about this story that bothers me is that more of these asshats weren't arrested.

A lot of times the baby seals do enjoy being petted and having their necks scratch yet technically this is still illegal harassment of marine mammals under state law. If the baby seal smells too much like humans it's mother might reject it causing the baby seal to die of starvation.



The real questionable area of the law is when you are swimming and a seal swims up to you. This happens all the time in La Jolla as the seals are naturally curious and are some what habituated to being around people.

And yet she couldn't have even been arrested for inducing her own miscarriage, which is a human life.

She didn't physically harm the turtle. We don't know that she kept the turtle from laying any eggs. We don't know if the turtle was even upset by it (turtles are notoriously mellow). She may have even driven off some nefarious scavengers. For being a dumbass she should perhaps pay a $500 fine.

Five years in jail? She didn't assault a cop. She didn't kill somebody in a DUI. She wasn't a school teacher who had sex with a minor. She didn't embezzle tens of thousands of dollars. She didn't plot to blow up an abortion clinic. She didn't shake a baby until it died. She didn't kill a bald eagle. She sat on a big turtle for a minute, and from the look of it didn't even put her weight on it.

This video isn't from around here but there are lots of stories of seals climbing up on surf boards especially the babies. Who, believe it or not, are not strong swimmers. They have to practice to build up strength and if the get tired they will look for a place to haul out even into a boat or onto a surf board with a human on it.



As long as humans haven't been hunting them or abusing them then they quickly grow quite tame. Seals are like the dogs of the sea.

And there's the rub. He petted the seal. Should he go to jail for five years as if he was running a meth lab? I think not. The laws are badly written. These are not poachers, nor are they trying to drive out native wildlife so they can build a property development. They are people encountering pretty friendly animals and interacting with them for a minute or two.

You were going to tell us why you approve of fertility clinics, weren't you?

As it happened,my very first trip to La Jolla took place a week or so after that law was passed to keep away from the seals at the Children's Pool. As disappointed as I was that I'd missed this, I can't blame them, either.

I'll bet the snooty locals were pissed after the fishing ban that brought all the noisy, smelly seagulls around in full force, though

OMG! The seagull poop stinks! I mean really, really, really smells bad. The city has spent millions trying to clean it up as tourists didn't like the smell while folks who owned expensive homes or sea side businesses suddenly decided they didn't want to be that close to nature.

Because fertility is a good thing. Without it, species go extinct. More importantly, the Internet wouldn't get new baby and baby animal videos.

There's a huge difference between sadistic monsters who use the lawn mower to mulch puppies and women who throw kittens into a river (we had one of those cases on video a few years ago), and people who just interact with animals in some way that we ourselves might do at some point or another. I have a friend in Florida who took in an African sulcata tortoise that had gotten loose, yet he routinely busts people for wildlife violations when they cross the line. He loves his job.

Yeah, the law change you spoke about was probably a good thing. It does mean the locals can no longer enjoy petting the animals but there really were people who were genuinely harassing the seals and causing harm. As usual a few jerks ruined it for everyone else.

It used to be you could just lay on the beach on your beach towel and the seals would come up to sniff you and just see what you were. If you were calm and didn't make any sudden moves then you might just find a seal sleeping on your towel next to you.

Good.

In prison, she'll be the turtle.

So you believe it's okay for them to destroy unused embryos, but abortions are murder. How does that work?

You mistake me for someone who is upset that Planned Parenthood keeps the minority population in check.

No, I'm very familiar with the stance you've taken in the Presidential 2016 thread until I mentioned fertility clinics.

Want some syrup with that waffle?

There is a video of just this happening recently in Costa Rica. The turtles came out of the water to lay their eggs and a huge crowd of drunk tourists ran out on the beach, harassed, and got so close to the turtles (touching them and what not) that it scared the turtles so they abandoned their attempts to lay their eggs for that year.

A better solution is having the people who are snoozing next to the seals beat the living shit out of the people who were harassing the seals. If you're always nice to animals, and in some cases stay very still for an hour or so, many of them will come say hello. Most people are too busy to just be. But if you are calm and still for a long time, you can interact with all kinds of critters.

Those were white babies. Planned Parenthood's original mission is to kill minority babies.

Dolphins are pretty smart too. This one was entangled in fishing line and presented itself to divers to be cleaned and disentangled. The divers cut the tangled line loose while the dolphin rolled over so that the divers could better see and cut parts of the line. After all of the line was removed the dolphin went back to its normal life.

So you've flip-flopped again in less than half an hour. Almost 7,000 troll posts and you're still not very good at it.

I don't think it works like that in lady prison

http://fox5sandiego.com/2015/08/30/another-hammerhead-shark-spotted-near-la-jolla/

There have been a number of hammerhead sightings this month with some of the sharks acting agressively. Unlike mammals which can be friendly big sharks are just big agressive eating machines.

Here is a video from four days ago off of Goleta Beach near UC Santa Barbara of a hammerhead acting agressively.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=JUld0tszSG8

Movies have lied to me once again.

Can't say as I'll ever understand this mentality. Why not simply punish the people who were actually causing harm?

As for the OP, yes, it does sound excessive to put someone in jail for 5 years over sitting on a turtle. That's less time than the doctor who is responsible for Michael Jackson's death got.

Yes, turtles/tortoise have a shell. But their body isn't designed to carry their shell & a human at the same time. Just like our legs can help us lift and work endlessly, but try running a marathon with Andre The Giant on your shoulders. BTW today when I was hunting I saw where the Fish & Game folks built a big frame with red flags around a gopher tortoise burrow just in case somebody who doesn't what it is starts messing with it. Sadly that big golden retriever that runs around loose in that area might start digging in it. I'm calling the Game Warden/police tomorrow to try to find out who it's idiot owners are, because he's fucking things up for us deer hunters. Anyway here's what a gopher tortoise & it's burrow look like. The holes are about 8" or bigger in diameter. I find them all the time in sandy soil.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ench-droppings-hundreds-nesting-seabirds.html

The extension of the marine park and no fishing zone which Anna mentioned has caused an explosion in fish life off La Jolla (no humans are there to fish them out and the hope is breeding populations will be established helping to replenish fish stocks outside the marine park). All this extra food has meant seals, sea birds, and even shark populations have exploded in the area to take advantage of the increased food supplies. One problem is all the poop all those sea birds leave on the rocks. Even Mitt Romney complained about the smell from his seaside mansion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ench-droppings-hundreds-nesting-seabirds.html

Video at link.

That's nature - every little link in the chain affects everything else.

When I was a kid we would all walk on those rocks which make up the cliffs and you would hardly ever see a single bird dropping. All the people walking on the rocks scared them off. It has been amazing how quickly the bird colonies and nesting grounds came back nearly the moment the city changed the laws to keep people off the rocks. Of course all those breeding pairs of sea birds means lots and lots of smelly bird crap.

It is worse than regular bird poop because it smells vaguely of rotting fish. The seals stink too like the fish oil is oozing out of their pores and pity the poor guy who gets breathed on by a seal. The stench of decaying, rotting fish parts makes dog breath infinity preferable.

This is down in Baja probably on one of the three day boats out of San Diego which take tourists on sport fishing trips. As you can see this sea lion knows he will get a treat if he climbs up on the boat so the tourists can see him.



They are kind of annoying because they will follow the fisherman around trying to snatched the fish as they are reeling it in. Poncho is more brazen than most though as he will grab fish on the sly if people aren't watching out.